[Healeys] Wire wheel hubs - how?

Chris Dimmock austin.healey at gmail.com
Thu Jul 21 02:44:51 MDT 2011


Ok, I'm heading off on a tangent, but I think it is important.
Rich said grease all the threads and splines. I just wanted to clarify  
this.
You grease the WHEEL splines, and the hub and spinner threads, and  
lightly wipe all tapered faces with minimal grease.
You DON'T actually grease the splined hub splines themselves.
Try it yourself - here's an experiment.
Grease the splined hub, not the wheel splines. For the sake of your  
experiment, fill the valleys of the splined hub with grease. Just to  
make it bloody obvious. No grease on the wheel splines.
Push the wheel onto the splined hub, grease lightly your spinner & hub  
thread& tapers, and tighten up the wheel with the spinner. Now loosen  
the spinner, remove the wheel, and look at the back of the splined hub.
See all that grease at the back of the hub & back of the wheel??????
It ends up in places that do nothing to help your wheels & hubs.
The wheel pushed the grease into the back of the hub/ wheel.
Now test 2.
Degrease everything. Clean & dry. Now pack the WHEEL splines with  
grease to the top of the valleys. Grease the splined hub thread &  
spinner thread, and lightly grease the tapers.
Now push the wheel on.
This time, the hub pushed the extra/excess grease to the spinner side  
of the hub, didn't it??
Now wipe off the excess which was pushed out, put on your spinner &  
tighten.
No excess grease floating around in your wheel.
Obviously the amount of grease pushed in or out is dependent on how  
good your wheels & hubs are.
Best
Chris
www.myaustinhealey.com

Sent from my iPhone

On 21/07/2011, at 10:51 AM, "Rich Chrysler"  
<richchrysler at quickclic.net> wrote:

> I believe the difference here, and the reason why some wheels and  
> splines
> were allowed to wear themselves out is because the threads of the  
> hubs and
> knockoff caps were too dry and did not allow the Rudge Whitworth  
> patented
> tightening action to take place. Their original instructions dealt  
> very
> definitely with greasing of the splines and threads and to ensure  
> dirt had
> not been allowed onto either, which also would have prevented their
> tightening action.
> Try this: with cleaned and lightly greased splines and threads, give  
> the
> knockoff a few good clouts with the hammer. I always only use the  
> rawhide
> side of a 2 lb. copper/rawhide hammer. When you think it's  
> sufficiently
> tight (and without overdoing it) take a felt tip pen and mark a spot  
> on the
> edge of the knockoff and the wheel hub. Take the car for a drive for  
> 4 or 5
> miles, ten recheck the two marks. I believe you'll find that the  
> knockoff
> will have tightened at least 1/4" more.
> It's very true where someone said the bad splines of a hub will chew  
> and
> ruin the new splines of a wheel, and vice versa.
>
> Rich


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